Is AI recruiting (un)ethical? A human rights perspective on the use of AI for hiring

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in organizations’ recruiting and selection procedures has become commonplace in business practice; accordingly, research on AI recruiting has increased substantially in recent years. But, though various articles have highlighted the potential opportunities and ethical risks of AI recruiting, the topic has not been normatively assessed yet. We aim to fill this gap by providing an ethical analysis of AI recruiting from a human rights perspective. In doing so, we elaborate on human rights’ theoretical implications for corporate use of AI-driven hiring solutions. Therefore, we analyze whether AI hiring practices inherently conflict with the concepts of validity, autonomy, nondiscrimination, privacy, and transparency, which represent the main human rights relevant in this context. Concluding that these concepts are not at odds, we then use existing legal and ethical implications to determine organizations’ responsibility to enforce and realize human rights standards in the context of AI recruiting.